On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 11:44 PM, john skaller <skal...@users.sourceforge.net> wrote: > I guess it depends on the base language: Racket and Clojure are > both Lisp/Scheme dialects, right?
well, they do use sexprs at least. code that is written to take advantage of loosey goosey forms of dynamic typing with runtime autocasting would presumably be hard to convert no matter what the surface syntax is? so i'd guess that if the standard libraries are written to take advantage of that, and do things like have differing return types for the same routine depending on overall state, then those would be hard to type/tame. clojure uses the jdk so that might make it easier overall than it was for racket? haven't used either enough to recall how loosey goosey their typing is. philip wadler had a paper about making a type system that lets you have a firewall between dynamic and static code that statically guarantees the dynamic code can't break the static code, i think. so that was another interesting tool along the range of dynamic/static. shen/qi-lisp offer both an untyped and a type checked mode, although i haven't mucked enough with them to understand the difference there yet; i *think* it is starting with a dynamic language assumption and then implementing a (sorta prolog based) type checker in that system, to optionally check programs you write in it. for me i want things typechecked from the get-go. :-) having an inference engine in there is nice, although mostly i think the real-world experience is that you might as well put in types manually along the way. otherwise the errors you get are weird and confused. but at least inference lets me write a replacement for my 10 line bash scripts w/out the ascii overhead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Felix-language mailing list Felix-language@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/felix-language
